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Tips for Photographing Your Jewelry

By Michelle Ecker on July 14, 2016

The New York Institute of Art and Design offers an online jewelry design course and because we do, we like to provide free tips for aspiring designers. Enjoy!

Tips for Photographing Your Jewelry

When it comes to jewelry design, the quality of the photographs you take of your finished work can have a massive effect on the way your brand is received by the public. Even if you’re a talented artist who makes beautiful accessories, if a potential client visits your website or social media and sees poorly-lit, out-of-focus pictures, they’re going to perceive your work to be sloppy or lackluster. Keeping this in mind, here are two techniques to practice next time you’re photographing your finished work:

Get Close

Someone shopping for something as detailed and intricate as a piece of small jewelry is going to want to make sure they’re purchasing something well-made. Providing close-up photographs will increase your online sales potential as it offers shoppers the best perspective in examining something they’d otherwise want to study up-close in real life.

The best way to accomplish this is to use your camera's “macro” or “close-up” mode. Many popular cameras use a picture of a flower on the camera’s control dial as a symbol to indicate this setting. With this feature, you’ll be able to get very close to your subject and entirely fill the image frame with the small design details you want your shoppers to see.

Angle It

Make sure to take several different pictures of the same item, all at different angles- definitely including the sides, top and front. When you are setting up an online image gallery to accompany the listing of a certain piece, a variety of images will only assist you in your effort to make the shopper comfortable enough with their impression of the item to purchase it without seeing it in real life. If there are any special findings or details that make a certain item unique, be sure to capture a close-up or two of those as well.

And remember- in addition to the close-up photos, it’s important to include at least one image that shows the entire piece of jewelry, ideally worn by someone (if this is something you’re able to shoot).

Want to learn more? The New York Institute of Art and Design offers an online jewelry design course that can teach you how to create and sell your own unique line of jewelry. Request your free course catalog today!